Wednesday, December 31, 2014

BUILDING A CULTURE OF
PEACE AND JUSTICE FOR CHILDREN. Compiled
by Dick Bennett.

What’s at stake: "Did
you know that the worldwide food shortage that threatens up to five hundred
million children could be alleviated at the cost of only one day, only one day,
of modern warfare." -- Peter Ustinov

“I wonder how the foreign policies of the
United States would look if we wiped out the national boundaries of the world,
at least in our minds, and thought of all children everywhere as our own.” Howard Zinn

by Sarah Fennel
It is Giving Tuesday! Please donate to Restore Humanity

Many
people are inspired to give at the end of the year for a variety of reasons and
while we know there are many causes worthy of your support we ask that you
consider giving to Restore Humanity this year so that we can continue our
current projects and expand our support to even more people in need.

Since
I founded Restore Humanity eight years ago, the most common question that I get
asked is “Why are you helping in Kenya?” Some are just asking out of curiosity
and others make it very clear that they don’t understand why we wouldn’t
choose to help American children? It is a valid question because there are
children in need all over the world, including here in the US and if I could
provide assistance to every child that needed it tomorrow then
believe me I would.

Unfortunately
this is not an option, so we all must do what we can, when we can, and how we
can. This is exactly why we help in Kenya because there is a serious need in
that area and we had an amazing opportunity to make a real and lasting impact.

Mrs.
Opot, our wonderful Kenyan partner contacted me in 2007 and asked if Restore
Humanity would help her to create a home for children in need in the rural
community that she lived in. She had land with a building on it that she
donated for the project and was willing to run the home day in and day out. It
is also important to note that we can do much more in Kenya than we could in
the US with the same amount of money and by my lights the need there
exists on a much greater scale.

We
took this awesome opportunity and now have a beautiful home full of 17 bright
and loving kiddos that also provides employment for 11 local Kenyan people from
the community. Each year we look for more opportunities to help and take
advantage of every one that we can. I encourage every person to do the
same. Every child matters, no matter where they are
from--ONE PLANET, ONE PEOPLE, ONE PURPOSE. We are all in this together!

Please
consider donating to one of our projects or to our “General Fund” and we will
use it where we need it. All donations are tax deductible and a donation in
someone’s name can be the perfect gift! If you are interested in giving a gift
of a donation please send me an email at sarah@restorehumanity.org for details.

CHILDREN
VICTIMS OF GENOCIDE

THIS IS WHAT KEEPS ME
FOCUSED WHEN DARKNESS OVERTAKES ME

Invariably, most serious scholars of genocide studies are
ultimately asked: How can you do this work? What keeps you going in light of
the darkness? The horror?

Many have also asked me: what prompts you to go to such places
as the NubaMountains
when the area continues to be bombed on a daily basis or to such all but God
forsaken places as Goz Beida, along the Chad/Darfur, Sudan border?

My answer is staring at you in the face: the above photo of a
little guy (Patrick) wish I could say I had met on one of the thousands
of hills in Rwanda.

It's also why I firmly believe that perhaps the most important
aspect of my life as far as genocide studies is concerned, and as far as being
a human being is concerned, is my co-founding The Post Genocide
Education Fund
with Rafiki Ubaldo, a survivor of the Rwandan genocide. As many of you know,
PGEF provides full scholarships and living expenses to young survivors of
genocide across the globe who wish to earn a university diploma. (Thus far,
we've sponsored students from Rwanda;
Darfur, Sudan;
and the NubaMountains,
Sudan.)
My point is: it is my one way to break out of the darkness and gain some sense
that I am actually helping people in desperate need, instead of solely writing
about the horrors faced by innocents either in the aftermath of genocide or
during the actual perpetration of crimes against humanity/genocide.

In closing, I wish to share an excerpt from the introduction of
my new and forthcoming edited book, The Plight and Fate of Children During and Following Genocide, in which I speak about
gazing at Patrick's countenance for the first time:

Introduction

Samuel Totten

Generally, when I make my way through museums dealing with

genocide I fi nd myself feeling sad and angry but I forge on and
make my

way through the exhibits. Th is, I have done, time and again,
beginning

back in 1978 when I fi rst visited Yad Vashem, the Holocaust
Martyrs’

and Heroes’ Remembrance Authority in Jerusalem,
the US
Holocaust

MemorialMuseum in 1993, and the tiny
museum on the Armenian

genocide located in the basement of a church in Deir et Zor (Syria)
in

2005. But then, in 2006, as I made my way through the museum at
the

Kigali Genocide Memorial Centre in Rwanda, I entered the “Children’s

Wing,” and within ten minutes my heart was shattered. I had only
managed

to view a tenth of the photographs and accompanying information

in the room, but I simply could not go on. I literally wanted to
scream

and fl ay away at a world that would allow such horrifi c
injustice and

atrocities to be perpetrated.

I shall never forget the last photo and captions that ripped my
heart

apart. It was the sweetest picture of a young man, Patrick,
seven years

humanity and genocide. And it’s not just killing that the latter
engage

in, but also the torture and butchery of babies and young
children.

When perpetrators kill infants and children there is often a
sadistic

tone and tenor to their actions. Th ey seem to enjoy exhibiting
their

perverted power over the victim population. Th ey seem to enjoy
crushing

the spirits of those parents and siblings who are forced to
watch

their children and babies and young brothers and sisters,
respectively,

be brutalized in the most horrifi c ways possible.

THIS, THEN, IS WHY I AM FIERCELY DEDICATED TO SEEING CRIMES
AGAINST HUMANITY AND GENOCIDE STOPPED IN THEIR DEADLY TRACKS, AND IT IS WHAT
DRIVES ME TO DO WHAT I DO.

Am heading back to the NubaMountains
right after the new year. Current reports are that Nuba civilians are
desperately trying to make their way out of Sudan
to South Sudan in search of food and many are
literally dropping and dying each and every day. Last week a colleague I am
working with to insert food into the region reported that he witnessed --
IN A SINGLE DAY -- 20 individuals (mainly elderly men
and woman and infants and young children) who had keeled over and perished
along the way. That is obscene. Unconscionable. And it's way I've been next
month, not next year. Each day that goes by another human being, like you and
I, like your children and grandchildren, will perish in that desert wondering
why no one but no one has reached out to them as those with the means would
surely wish others would do for them should they find themselves in such dire
straits.

Sorry for the soapboxing. That was not my intent!

Thank you for listening. Thank you for what you do to try to
make the world a better place.

warmly, Sam

CINDY
SHEEHAN’S SOAPBOX FOR CHILDREN

Wars, Bombings, Children, Libya, Syria,
USA

Sunday,
June 12, 2011

Children
and War by Cindy Sheehan

Recently,
I was listening to KGO radio and in case you don’t know, KGO is theABC affiliate
super-station here in San Francisco that can be heard by millions of people
with its mega-wattage transmitter.

Gene
Burns happened to be the host at that time. The night that I was listening, Mr.
Burns was wondering why the U.S. is bombing Libya, but not Syria, because Syria
is, “torturing and killing children,” and Mr. Burns didn’t know how the people
of the world could stand by and watch this happen.

I
wish I could have gotten through on the call-in line because I would have asked
Mr. Burns how he feels about the USA torturing and killing children in places
like Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen. These are the active places
the US is bombing, but what about the children that were held or are being held
in places like Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; Abu Ghraib in Iraq or Bagram AFB in
Afghanistan? Why are the "people of the world" standing by and
watching the US destroy civilization as it murders and tortures children?

It
is my suspicion that even the most hardcore war supporter knows that women and
children are the ones that suffer the most from war—but as War Madam, Madeline
Albright notoriously said in an interview with Lesley Stahl of CBS: the
slaughter of over 500,000 Iraqi children during the sanctions period during the
Clinton regime was “worth it.” Monsters don’t always have to have long claws,
bloody fangs, or inhabit our nightmares—they can look like somebody’s
Grammy—and that’s what I call a waking terror.

As
a mother of a victim of US Imperialism, my well of empathy is bottomless, but I
am not like Gene Burns—I don’t think we should just be upset when “rogue”
regimes kill or torture children—because the US is the largest rogue regime in
recorded history. The rogue Empire counts on people like Gene Burns to provide
cover for its crimes, in part, by over-sensationalizing the crimes of others.

Because
of the definition of “collateral damage” (“We don’t do body counts,” General
Tommy Franks), it is hard to pin down the exact number of children that have
been killed by the US’s War OF Terror since 2001—in fact, it’s almost
impossible, but a safe guesstimate is hundreds of thousands. However, one was
exactly one too many.

What
I can do for you is tell you some statistics on how children are treated here
in the US:

Children
should be the ultimate expression of love, joy, and hope in all societies and I
am not trying to excuse Syrian forces for what has happened. Killing/torturing
a child (adult) is an abomination, but what I am trying to do is put things in
perspective.

Why
would the dark forces that run the US care about murdering brown children with
odd sounding names in far away places when it doesn’t even care about the
children here within our own borders?

Today (Sunday, June 12), on CBS's Meet the Press, war monster, Senator
Lindsey Graham of SC said that the time was "very close" to attacking
Syria, and it's time to let President Assad know that "all options are on
the table."

If we do attack Syria, then the Nobel Laureate POTUS would be at war with at
least six countries. I hope that Graham is just having a wet dream about Syria,
but I fear he is correct because the US can't allow anybody else to kill
people--our War Machine already has a near monopoly on murder.

AP reports that jury selection is supposed to start in Houston
today in the case Jamie Leigh Jones has brought against Halliburton. Jones was
working as a KBR contractor in Iraq when she was gang-raped. When she attempted
to address the ...

Recently, I was listening to KGO radio and in case you don't
know, KGO is the ABC affiliate super-station here in San Francisco that can be
heard by millions of people with it's mega-wattage transmitter. ...

SWAT team busts into house over student loan default. Posted on
06.8.11. By Sahil Kapur Acting on orders from the U.S. Department of Education,
a S.W.A.T. team broke into a California home Tuesday at 6 a.m. and roughed up a
man ...

from Richard Beamish rbeamish@tappercuddy.com to
vicpopuli1@gmail.com date Wed, Jun 8, 2011 at 7:34 AM subject blogs mailed-by
tappercuddy.com. I have read your blog which involves a case in which I was involved.
I accept the story in ...

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Today
the United States began bombing Iraq again. Decades of U.S. military
intervention fomented the crisis in Iraq today, and more bombing will only
mean more bloodshed and instability.

Over the past several years, a groundswell of grassroots
opposition shut down the U.S. plan to bomb Syria and led to the eventual
withdrawal of U.S. ground troops from Iraq. We need your support today to
stop more U.S. bombing in Iraq.

Just two weeks ago, the House of Representatives passed
H. Con. Res 105, calling on President Obama to seek explicit authorization
before engaging in 'sustained combat' in Iraq. That was an important signal
demonstrating Congress opposed more wars in the Middle East.

But in the wake of today's crisis, most members of
Congress speaking out have supported the U.S. bombing of Iraq, despite the
president not seeking explicit authorization before beginning these attacks.

Marian Wright Edelman | It's Time
to End Child Poverty in Rich America With Urgency and PersistenceMarian Wright Edelman, Reader Supported News , Jan. 25, 2014Edelman reports: "Fifty years after President
Lyndon Johnson declared a War on Poverty, the United States is still not a fair
playing field for millions of children afflicted by preventable poverty,
hunger, homelessness, sickness, poor education and violence in the world's
richest economy with a gross domestic product (GDP) of $15.7 trillion."READ MORE

Following a wish
expressed by Pope Francis, an international conference to examine human
trafficking and modern slavery takes place in the Vatican on November 2 and 3.
Described as a "preparatory workshop", organised by the Pontifical
Academy of Sciences and the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences together with
the World Federation of Catholic Medical Associations, the event aims to
examine the trade in human persons in order to establish the real state of this
phenomenon and an agenda to combat this heinous crime.
Each participant at the two-day conference will present a study shining the
light haranguing
Members of Congress, The White House and the United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum, among others, to yank off their purposely placed blinders and OPEN
THEIR EYES to the reality of the world we all live in and do something to try
to ameliorate the horrors -- NOW, not next week, not

on a particular perspective of human
trafficking.
Professor Marcelo Suarez-Orozco is dean of the UCLA Graduate School of
Education and Information Studies. He and his wife, Professor Carola
Suarez-Orozco, will present papers that focus on the trafficking of children in
the global millenium.
Listen to Linda Bordoni's interview with Prof. Marcelo Suarez-Orozco...
Professor Suarez-Orozco says “Human trafficking is a very ancient infamy with a
very new face”.
He explains that in his paper he and his wife “locate human trafficking: the
trends, the growing movement of trafficking of the underage, a global
perspective that looks at issues relating to structural economic inequality,
that looks at issues pertinent to the mass movement of people, mass migration,
and that looks at the roles of the new media, new information, communication
technologies, specially social media that is now fully implicated into the
trafficking of children. We examine the varieties of domains where immigrant
children and trafficked children today are exploited in different forms of
slave labour”.These – he continues -- include agriculture, domestic work, the
commercial sexual exploitation of children, including the explosive growth of
child pornography on the Internet. The paper explores the issues facing
children who are used as drug mules for drug trafficking, and lastly the
enslavement of children as child soldiers.
Professor Suarez-Orozco examines the devastating psychological and cultural
effects on the children who are deprived not only of their present, but also of
their future as many of them do not have the instruments to overcome such
trials. Describing the phenomenon of human trafficking, Suarez-Oroaco says
it amounts to about a $30 billion enterprise – that is larger than the GDP of
Jordan, for example.
He says the trafficking of human beings is the third-most profitable global
criminal enterprise, after drugs and armaments. The professor highlights
the fact that up to 75 per cent of all detected trafficked people are women and
children. (There are about 27 million trafficked people in the world today) And
he says that the percentage of children in increasing: “In the U.S., it is
estimated that of all the detected trafficked people, 50 per cent are under
age”.
However, he points out that the phenomenon is largely undetected and describes
it as a hidden crime with a huge gap between the numbers of victims and those
who are prosecuted for it.It is a crime, he says, “where no one has the
incentive and declare the devil and the details”.

The Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy,
a Roman Catholic priest in Wisconsin who died in 1998, appears in old
photographs and home movies as an energetic, round-faced man with a warm,
friendly, efficient manner. Even without the sinister music that shadows these
glimpses of Father Murphy’s benign, banal public activities in the ’50s and
’60s, the viewer of “Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence in the House of God,”Alex Gibney’s new documentary, will suspect that there’s something
terrible lurking under the surface.

The Rev. Lawrence C. Murphy, who was in
charge of a boarding school for the deaf.

There was a time, not long ago, when a priest’s devotion to children
would elicit a smile of approval rather than a shudder of suspicion and dread.
The revelation early in the movie that Father Murphy, who was for many years in
charge of a boarding school for the deaf, systematically molested youngsters in
his care — scores if not hundreds over the years — is sickening but not
especially surprising. A decade of reporting and advocacy has made stories like
his distressingly familiar.

“Mea Maxima Culpa” is not the first
documentary to present the testimony of victims or to expose the failure of the
Roman Catholic hierarchy in dealing with widespread sexual abuse by priests.
Kirby Dick’s “Twist of
Faith”(2004) and Amy Berg’s “Deliver
Us From Evil” (2006) are both important predecessors that link
intimate crimes with institutional failures. But the prolific Mr. Gibney,
whose other films include “Enron:
The Smartest Guys in the Room,”“Taxi
to the Dark Side” and “Casino Jack and the United States of Money,” is
something of a specialist in the corruptions of power. And he doggedly updates
the larger story here, connecting dots that lead, in a trail of denial and
cover-up, from the rural Midwest to the Vatican.

His methods are a blend of solid journalism and cinematic
sensationalism. The reliance on melodramatic music and lurid — though not
explicit — re-enactments does not seem to me to make the movie more powerful,
but rather the opposite. There is something to be said for a clear and
unblinking recitation of facts, and thankfully Mr. Gibney does a lot of that.
He talks with journalists who have covered the sex-abuse story (including Laurie Goodstein of The New York Times) and Catholic
clergy and lay people who have pushed for transparency and accountability.
(Unsurprisingly the Vatican and the American church declined his requests for
interviews.)

These conversations, along with archival video clips and Mr. Gibney’s
own calm, angry voice-over narration, make the case that sexual abuse in the
church was more than a matter of isolated misbehavior and local mismanagement.
The heart of the problem, the film contends, was a conspiracy of silence that
extended to — and was to some extent orchestrated in — the highest levels of
the Holy See.

This argument takes up much of the second half of the film, which
amounts to a prosecutorial brief against Pope Benedict XVI and some of his
close associates. This is important and disturbing stuff. But the heart of “Mea
Maxima Culpa” — the real source of its emotional impact — lies in a remarkable
series of interviews with some of the men, most now in their 60s, who endured
Father Murphy’s assaults when they were children and who have worked for almost
40 years to bring his crimes to light.

Their words are interpreted by well-known actors, including John
Slattery, Jamey Sheridan, Chris Cooper and Ethan Hawke. The way Mr. Gibney
films them, against dark backgrounds with soft, indirect light, emphasizes the
expressivity of their faces and hands, and will remind hearing viewers of the
richness and eloquence of American Sign Language. It is no accident that the
last words signed in the film are “Deaf Power.” Much as it is a grim chronicle of violation and denial, “Mea Maxima
Culpa” is also, less overtly but no less importantly, a chapter in the history
of thedisability rights movement.

That Father Murphy’s victims were deaf gave their abuser an extra layer
of protection. Some of the boys could not communicate very well with their
hearing families, and Father Murphy operated in the literal certainty of their
silence. These students were especially vulnerable, less because of their
physical difference than because of the social marginalization that accompanied
it. Their specific demand for justice as they grew older was thus also part of
a larger insistence on recognition and the acquisition of a public voice.

Mea Maxima Culpa: Silence
in the House of God

Written and directed by Alex Gibney; director of photography, Lisa
Rinzler; edited by Sloane Klevin; music by Ivor Guest and Robert Logan;
produced by Mr. Gibney, Alexandra Johnes, Kristen Vaurio, Jedd Wider and Todd
Wider; released by HBO Documentary Films. At the Film Forum, 209 West Houston
Street, west of Avenue of the Americas, South Village. Running time: 1 hour 46
minutes.

Research scientist Stephanie Seneff of the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT), a widely published author on topics ranging from
Azlheimer’s Disease to autism and cardiovascular disease, raised plenty of
eyebrows recently with a bold proclamation on autism at a special panel in
Massachusetts about genetically modified organisms and other topics.

“At
today’s rate, by 2025, one in two children will be autistic,” Seneff said last
Thursday in Groton, MA at an event sponsored by the holistic-focused Groton
Wellness organization.

Seneff presented slides showing a remarkably consistent
correlation between the rising use of Roundup
(with its active ingredient glyphosate) on crops and the rising rates of
autism; while it doesn’t show a direct correlation it does give researchers
plenty to think about, especially considering Seneff’s research into the side effects of autism that mimic
glyphosate toxicity and deficiencies.

The slide notes that the heaviest use of Roundup, Monsanto’s flagship weedkiller, began in 1990 and
continued to rise since. Meanwhile, the number of kids with autism has
gone from 1 in 5,000 in 1975 to 1 in 68 today, a puzzling and frustrating
stat that shows no signs of slowing down and one that correlates strongly with
the rise in glyphosate use.

Of course, autism is a complex problem with many potential
causes, but the numbers are particularly of note considering how close the
correlation is, and Seneff’s credentials.

Dr. Seneff has written 10 papers (7 as the first author) in
various medical and health journals on modern diseases as well as drug side
effects, nutritional deficiencies and the impacts of environmental toxins on our health. She
also worked as a Senior Research Scientist at the MIT Computer Science and
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory before turning to biology, as her official biography notes.

You can read more about her presentation on the website The
Complete Patient by clicking here, and you can also check out the full
versions of her slides on glyphosate and autism by clicking here.

EPA DEBATING ROUNDUP BAN OR RESTRICTIONS, ARE THEY BEING
OBJECTIVE?

Recently, the group Moms Across America visited with officials from the EPA to discuss a
potential ban or restrictions on Roundup, especially in light of recent
findings that the active ingredient glyphosate is found in the breast milk
of American mothers at levels that are a dangerous 760 to 1600 times higher
than allowable limits in European drinking water.

While the group made its point loud and clear, it is well worth
noting than many of the 100 studies provided for the EPA’s review were actually
provided by the chemical companies themselves.

Urine testing has also shown that Americans have 10 times
the glyphosate accumulation in their urine than Europeans, and children with
autism have many biomarkers indicating excessive glyphosate in their systems
including key mineral deficiencies, seizures and mitochondrial (the cell’s
power center) disorders.

SENEFF RESPONDS TO MONSANTO’S KEY ARGUMENT

While Monsanto claims that Roundup is harmless because humans
don’t have a shikimate pathway, which it inhibits, Seneff notes that our gutbacteria do have this
pathway, and that’s crucial because these bacteria supply our body with crucial
amino acids.

She also says that most studies are too short to show
Roundup’s oft-studied effects as a cumulative toxin, one that builds up both
in the environment and in our bodies over time.

According to Seneff, Roundup has the following side effects: it kills
beneficial gut bacteria, allowing pathogens to grow; interferes with the
synthesis of amino acids and methionine which leads to shortages in critical
neurotransmitters and folate; chelates (removes) important minerals like iron,
cobalt and manganese, and much more.

Additional chemicals in Roundup are untested because they’re
classified as “inert,”she notes in her presentation, but according to a 2014
study in BioMed Research International they are capable of amplifying
the ill effects of Roundup hundreds of times over.

To learn more about Seneff’s warning over autism and Roundup
accumulation, you can view her slideshow on the topic. Until then, it’s
best to exercise caution, and to buy and grow organic food whenever possible.

Many harms to wrestle, while not losing focus on HARMS of
wars and warming.

For
Grace and all children now and to be. I
received the latest no. of Population Connection (formerly
ZPG) this week especially focusing on overpopulation's impact on our oceans.
And I always am glad to hear about LARC, the new long-range
contraception.

I
haven’t had the talk yet with my kids: my 11-year-old son and 6-year-old
daughter. I mean the one about global warming,
about what’s coming. But then, we grown-ups haven’t had the talk yet among
ourselves. Not really. We don’t seem to know how: the topic is apparently too
big and scary. Or perhaps, for the uninformed (or misinformed), not scary
enough.

We
might take a cue from Mark Hertsgaard’s “Hot,” which raises the emotional
stakes while keeping a clear head. This was the first book on climate change
that not only frightened me — plenty have done that — but also broke my heart.
It happened first on the dedication page, where he writes, “For my daughter, Chiara, who has to
live through this.” And again, as I read his epilogue: a letter addressed to
Chiara on her 15th birthday, in 2020 — a “cardinal date,” Hertsgaard rightly
calls it. “According to the scientists I interviewed,” he tells her, “many,
many things have to happen by 2020 if this planet is to remain a livable
place.” That is, if the storms, droughts, rising sea levels and mass
extinctions of species are to remain within “manageable” limits.

Hertsgaard,
to his credit, refuses to sugarcoat these facts. For all the justifiable fears
about flooded coastlines, he writes, the “overriding danger” in the coming
years is drought. “Floods kill thousands, drought can kill millions,” one
expert told him. Within two decades, the number of people in “water-stressed
countries” will rise to three billion from 800 million.

And
yet Hertsgaard also knows that we cannot allow fear or despair, or even anger,
to be our only response. To face this challenge, we need reasons to believe the task is doable. Hertsgaard
makes a valiant effort to provide them. He presents a strong case that there is
still time to make an enormous difference. We know what to do, and much of the
technology already exists. But we must act now.

Hertsgaard,
a veteran journalist, had his awakening in October 2005. Interviewing David
King, at the time Britain’s chief climate scientist, he realized that
human-caused climate change is not a distant threat but already upon us.
“Scientists had actually underestimated the danger,” he writes. “Climate change
had arrived a century sooner than expected.” What’s more, given our current
trajectory — economic, cultural and, most important, political — it’s
guaranteed to get a lot worse before it gets any better. (Significant impacts
like sea-level rise are now “locked in.”) And it won’t get any better — indeed,
it will become truly unmanageable — if we don’t make the necessary cuts in
global greenhouse emissions.

This
leads Hertsgaard to what he calls the new “double
imperative” of the climate fight. “We have to live through global warming,”
he writes, “even as we halt and reverse it.” In other words, while deep
emissions cuts (what experts call “mitigation”) remain the top priority, that
alone is no longer enough. We also have to do everything we can to prepare for
the effects of climate change.

Adaptation
— strengthening levees and sea defenses, safeguarding water and food supplies,
preparing for more intense heat waves — has long been a touchy subject among
advocates, who warn that it signals resignation, or a false sense of security
(that we can continue adapting indefinitely), and that it steals resources from
the all-important focus on mitigation. But the debate is shifting, and climate
adaptation is starting to get the attention it deserves.

There’s
not much new in what Hertsgaard advocates on the mitigation front — a “Green
Apollo” program with an economy-wide price on carbon, vastly increased energy
efficiency, huge investments in clean-energy technology, and other mainstream ideas.

His
significant contribution is his ground-level reporting on adaptation efforts
around the world, from American cities to Bangladesh to the Sahel. All the
stories are sobering, but many are also surprisingly hopeful: the Netherlands’
bold 200-year plan to save the country from a devastating sea-level
rise; the utterly unexpected success of farmers in Mali, Niger and Burkina Faso
in reclaiming huge areas of arable land from desertification; China’s research
on large-scale ecological agriculture.

But
most important, what Hertsgaard finds is that the ability to adapt to climate
change depends as much on “social
context” — defined as “the mix of public attitudes, cultural habits,
political tendencies, economic interests and civic procedures” — as on wealth
and technological sophistication. Wealth and technology clearly matter, but
politics and culture may trump them. Take Louisiana: efforts to prepare for
future hurricanes, Hertsgaard writes,
“have been crippled by the state’s history of poor government” along with “its
continuing reluctance — even after Katrina — to acknowledge the reality of
global warming for fear that might harm oil and gas production, and an
abhorrence of taxes and public planning as somehow socialistic.”

In
fact, Hertsgaard’s reporting makes me wonder if there isn’t more hope for the
Sahel than for the vulnerable South and Southwest of the United States. After
all, why prepare for something — much less try to halt it — if you refuse to
believe it’s happening?

The
American social context too often remains the largest obstacle, Hertsgaard
observes, not only to adaptation at home but to cutting emissions globally.
It’s not clear how to change this, but an honest, urgent, grown-up national
conversation — beginning in Washington — would be a start.

Wen
Stephenson is a former editor of The Boston Globe’s Ideas section.

POLLUTANTS KILLING CHILDREN

UNICEF
reported that " deaths from asthma among children could increase by 20% by
2016 unless we act drastically to reduce emissions from vehicles and
factories." (quote from
treehugger.com)

12-19-09 FSTV presented Karl
Grossman's regular "Enviro Close-up," interviewing Dr. Leo Trasande,
founder of the Center for Children's Health and the ENVIRONMENT. He explained the widespread
disease consequences of air pollution--asthma, mercury, lead, etc., and called
for both reduction of pollution and the creation of statewide children's
environmental health clinics. It seems like a personal, local way
for OMNI to make people aware of the harms of CO2 and other
pollutants. (Dick)